Learning the guitar is hard. Or so you may have been told. Nobody likes endless drills. Most guitar classes might as well be boot camp for your fingers. Imagine what it’d be like if there were a fun way to learn, instead, where you start by playing real songs that you recognize on day one. Guitar […]

One of the toughest things I’ve encountered in learning music so far is just how fast music feels like it is moving when I am first attempting to play something. It doesn’t matter if I’m playing scales to a metronome or notes to a song: my brain is having a hard time coordinating all that movement […]

After a week of exploring music, I needed to start getting into the business of learning how to create music if I wanted to make real progress. There are tons of educational tools out there all aimed at musicians, especially at guitar players. I needed to decide which of them, if any, were right for […]

As I prepared to learn to become musical in just one year, I needed to figure out where to start. Here’s the inside look at how to go about the very first stages of learning any new skill. Without a doubt, preparation is the most important part of learning anything. Diving straight into doing is like putting […]

An Audacious Goal My goal is to compose and produce a song (with my own vocals and an instrument) within 12 months, starting from musical scratch. There. I said it. I’ve flip-flopped on this more than a few times in the past couple months. Finally I decided that I simply had to do it. Music has been […]

Drawing is one of “those artsy talents” — the kind that people seem to think that they either have or don’t. Yet artists will tell you that it’s just a matter of practice to learn to draw. Could a single book be enough to teach me to draw during the holidays? I decided to find […]

This post contains a Duolingo review, including a video (below). Check out my free speed studying course to help maximize your learning. I had previously used the Duolingo game to refine my French, and at the end of the article I alluded to the fact that I wanted to try to learn a new language. […]

Check out my next steps for learning a language after beating Duolingo for the best way to continue your learning, or learn how to create the perfect practice plan if you’re just getting started. This post is one of my many reviews of educational software, and there are more language learning resources at the end. When I first found Duolingo […]

At the beginning of 2013, I set a lofty goal for myself: to read 100 books through the course of the year. When August rolled around and I had just crossed the 52 book mark, it became apparent that I needed to step up my game. I could have chosen simpler books (cheated) or abandoned […]

I have tried reading books in foreign languages before, such as when I was learning Spanish. Like most, I found it challenging. The number of unknown words and the sheer amount of confusion made it easy to give up, even with simple books. It seemed more like a chore than anything else. This time around, […]

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The other day, I spent my morning volunteering an the San Quentin prison with a program called The Last Mile. As Wired recently reported, this nonprofit seeks to help inmates prepare to get a job on the outside. I was as shocked as anybody when a friend of mine called up asking me to teach advanced […]

This weekend, a friend of mine brought a “Go” board to a party. I’d heard a lot about this notoriously complex and ancient game. Most recently, it was in the news because a computer finally beat a master Go player. This triumph of computer programming illustrates just how hard Go is. Computers were regularly beating […]

There is an essential skill which many of us have lost. This loss is a symptom of how easy it is to publish. Or tweet. Blog. Snap. Broadcast. Record. Our filters have dropped. We say what is on our minds and hope for a “like.” Really, our ancestors were no different. They wanted the same social approval. […]